Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Pick your poison

Aid-worker friend has just told me a very funny story about a new store that opened in his neighborhood. "A new store" he gurgled, his voice laden with meaning. Of course it turned out, merely, that this shop stocks meat. However, in a blow which he says is characteristic of daily life here, the meat in question is actually mincemeat that's six months old. Moreover, the shopkeeper insisted- insisted- that it was manufactured 'in foreign.' The label saying 'produce of India' was clearly just piffle.

Sigh. Poor aid-worker friend. After toiling so hard in this great land of ours for close to a decade, one would think he would be entitled to some goodies in the blessed neighborhood shop. Disconsolate, he wandered over to the soft drinks aisle and spotted ginger ale. Ah! But such is his despondency, he is wondering how old that is. Well, I consoled him, at least ginger ale won't give you salmonella. Or will it? Some new form of ale-borne pest that will fell him and crush his last remaining bits of optimism?

But, as the beginning of this rather pointless story will tell you, hope still springs eternal in his breast. Better that than salmonella, what?